The elite world of French cinema is divided over the 45th César Awards ceremony, the French equivalent of the Oscars. A movie by the controversial and divisive Franco-Polish filmmaker Roman Polanski won three awards, including the coveted Best Director prize. This was a bitter pill to swallow for many, including feminist groups who had called for a boycott of the ceremony. The incident once again ignited a fierce debate about the question of “separating the man from the artist”. Does this episode highlight a deep-rooted problem in French society? And are things slowly starting to change?

The elite world of French cinema, one of the pillars of the country’s exception culturelle, was bitterly divided after Roman Polanski was named best director at France’s equivalent of the Oscars.Several actresses walked out on Friday night as the César was awarded to the Franco-Polish director who is still wanted in the United States after he admitted the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl.The award was viewed as provocative and a slap in the face for sexual abuse victims and #MeToo campaigners who have struggled to gain recognition in France. Outside the ceremony, feminists clashed with police. Polanski, 86, had stayed away, saying he feared a “feminist lynching”.On Saturday, Ursula Le Menn, an activist with Osez le Féminisme (“Dare to be feminist”), the group that organised the protest outside the ceremony, said the award showed that nothing had changed in the world of French cinema. “The empathy shown is a facade …. There is no real change of mentality,” she said.

Polanski’s film, J’Accuse (An Officer and a Spy), about the Dreyfus affair, was nominated for 12 Césars, and won two others – for best adaptation and best costume design. But it was the decision to name him best director that caused the most outrage.

“Polanski has presented himself like Dreyfus, a victim, and used his film for his own defence. For women who have had the courage to speak out about the abuse they suffered, there is an enormous pain seeing this man distinguished,” said Le Menn.

“We ask women to come forward and speak out and they see not only are there no consequences for their aggressors, but those same aggressors are honoured in this way.”

Actress Adèle Haenel, who last year revealed she had been sexually abused as a child by another director, shouted “Shame!” as she left the awards. Others followed, including the director Céline Sciamma. The ceremony’s host, Florence Foresti, also failed to return to close the event. On her Twitter account Foresti said she was “disgusted”.

Alexis Poulin, a French journalist and co-founder of an online media site, said many in France felt the same way. “A lot of people in France are disgusted this morning. What happened yesterday was wrong and I have been saying this for ever. I think it’s unfair Polanski is given all these honours,” he said.

“Giving Polanski a prize was quite a statement. The film is something a lot of people work on, not just him. Giving him the prize protects him – it says you cannot reach him and the French cinema elite will stick together: it’s like a cinema mob and he’s the godfather.

“It says to the victims, ‘we don’t want to hear you, you are nothing, we don’t trust you’,” Poulin added.

J’Accuse recounts the persecution of the French Jewish army officer Alfred Dreyfus in the 1890s, convicted of trumped-up charges of treason. In an interview to promote the film, Polanski admitted he saw himself like Dreyfus: “I am familiar with many of the workings of the apparatus of persecution shown in the film… I can see the same determination to deny the facts and condemn me for things I have not done. Most of the people who harass me do not know me and know nothing about the case.”

Poulin said the award had revealed a deep problem in French society. “Polanski fled and found refuge in France. In France, we accept rapists on the run because they’re artists. It’s a problem of French society.”

Polanski admitted the statutory rape of 13-year-old Samantha Gailey in 1977 after more serious charges were dropped in a plea bargain. While awaiting sentencing, he fled the US. France has refused to extradite him.

Since then, a number of other sexual abuse allegations have been made against the director, who became famous with his film Rosemary’s Baby. The most recent was last November when a French photographer, Valentine Monnier, accused Polanski of raping her in 1975, when she was 18, at his chalet in Gstaad, Switzerland. Polanski has denied all the allegations.

He received backing on Saturday from the philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, who tweeted: “That the #Cesars waited until #Polanski was absent and could not respond, to mock him, humiliate him, overplay disgust and go so far as to refuse to pronounce his name, that says a lot about where the real “Miserables” were last night.”

Snubbed by the French film awards, the “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” star has been an active voice in the #MeToo movement.

In what felt like a statement against criticisms of the embittered French film academy, controversy magnet Roman Polanski won the Best Director prize at the 2020 César Awards in Paris on Friday for his Dreyfus Affair drama “An Officer and a Spy.” He beat out fellow nominees including Ladj Ly, whose “Les Misérables” ultimately won Best Film, and Céline Sciamma, whose wildly acclaimed “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” went home with just one award, for Best Cinematography. Polanski’s win did not sit well with “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” star Adèle Haenel, who could be seen in the telecast walking out of the ceremony at the Salle Pleyel when the award was announced. Watch below.

Haenel has been an active voice in the #MeToo movement which, as she outlined in a recent New York Times interview, she believes has failed in France. That claim appeared to resonate at the Césars — France’s equivalent to the Academy Awards — when Polanski, a convicted sex offender, won the top directing prize. In fall 2018, Haenel spoke about her own experience with sexual harassment while working with “The Devils” director Christophe Ruggia. Haenel was up for Best Actress at the French awards this year, but lost to Anaïs Demoustier for “Alice and the Mayor.”

Polanski was a no-show at the ceremony, as were his “Officer and a Spy” team members, all of whom boycotted the ceremony earlier this week.

"Well done paedophilia!" shouts French actress Adèle Haenel as she walks out of the César Awards after convicted rapist Roman Polanski won best director. She's not the only one: host Florence Foresti also didn't return to the stage, writing on Instagram that she was "disgusted". https://t.co/Zn6TXZzJGW

“Activists are threatening me with a public lynching. Some have called for demonstrations, others are planning to make it a platform,” he told Agence France Presse earlier this week. “This promises to look more like a symposium than a celebration of cinema designed to reward its greatest talents.”

Polanski, a convicted sex offender, has lived in exile in France since fleeing the United States in 1978. In France, his continuing body of work is well-received. Along with three César trophies for “An Officer and a Spy” on Friday night — directing, adapted screenplay, and costumes — the annual awards have past feted Polanski with Best Director in 2014 for “Venus in Fur,” Best Adapted Screenplay for “Carnage” in 2012, along with multiple prizes each for “The Ghost Writer,” “The Pianist,” and “Tess.”

As the César Awards were underway on Friday, women’s activist groups outside the venue protested Polanski’s inclusion among the nominees.